Friday, 30 September 2011

Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh has admitted that the United States intelligence apparatus is closely monitoring the situation in the country.

“I believe that the American intelligence is following this up and keeping a close eye on it and that they know exactly what is going on,” Saleh said on Thursday in an interview with Time magazine, referring to the developments inside the country.

He said Washington was investigating a June attack on the presidential palace that inflicted serious injury on him as well as other Yemeni officials.

Saleh also alleged that “American intelligence has knowledge that [the al-Qaeda terrorist group] is in contact with both the [Yemeni opposition] Muslim Brotherhood and the military officers who are outlaws,” referring to defecting military officials.

He asserted that he would not sign an agreement proposed by the regional Arab alliance of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council ([P]GCC), which has been drawn up as a means of diffusing the political crisis in the country.

The plan grants Saleh immunity from prosecution on the condition that he steps down within 30 days of signing the deal. The opposition would then be tasked with forming a national unity government with his ruling General People's Congress party.

He, however, warned that such a deal would lead Yemen toward civil war.

Saleh has already been in office for more than 30 years with several opposition members arguing that his long-promised reforms have not been implemented.

Hundreds of thousands of people have turned out for regular protest rallies in Yemen's major cities since late January, calling for an end to corruption and unemployment, while demanding the ouster of Saleh's regime. A regime-ordered crackdown against the demonstrations has so far killed hundreds of people among the outraged public.

'Earlier this morning, Anwar Awlaki, the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was killed (extra-judicially assassinated) in Yemen. The death of Awlaki is a major blow to Al Qaeda's most active operational affiliate. Awlaki was the leader of external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (The Pentagon has told me to say). In that role he took the lead in planning and directing the efforts to murder innocent Americans. He directed the failed attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas day in 2009 (The CIA has told me to say). He directed the failed attempt to blow up U.S. cargo planes in 20109(The CIA has told me to say). And he repeatedly called among individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children ('I call on you to kill innocent men women and children' he used to say) to advance a murderous agenda.

The death of Awlaki marks another significant milestone (provocation to Islamists and ordinary Muslims) in the broader effort to defeat Al Qaeda and its affiliates. Furthermore this success is a tribute to our intelligence community (the ones who got it so right over 9/11 and WMD and Yellowcake and all that shit) and to the efforts of Yemen and its security forces and torturers who have worked closely with the United States over the course of several years.

Awlaki and his organization have been directly responsible for deaths of many Yemeni citizens as have our allies the Yemeni authorities. His hateful ideology and targeting of innocent civilians has been rejected by the vast majority of Muslims and people of all faiths especially when it happens every week in NATO raids in Afghanistan. And he has met his demise because the government and the people of Yemen have joined the international community in a common effort against Al Qaeda, whose ranks will be swelled by this latest crass flouting of international law.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula remains a dangerous, though weakened terrorist organization. And going forward we will remain vigilant against any threats to the United States or our allies and partners (like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Israel). But make no mistake (it says here), this is further proof that Al Qaeda and its affiliates will find no safe haven anywhere in the world.

Working with Yemen and our other allies, like Israel, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq we will be determined, we will be deliberate, we will be relentless, we will be resolute, we will be crass, we will be stupid, we will be culturally and historically illiterate, we will be insensitive, we will be impervious to criticism, we will be unable to learn from our continued mistakes in our commitment to destroy terrorist networks that aim to kill Americans and to build a world in which people everywhere can live in greater peace, prosperity and security with hope, peace, change, mom's apple pie, burble,burble, burbl....

SARAH Palin last night claimed drug taking and having sex with tall, muscly black men was the dream of every real American.
The former Alaskan governor said that filling your nose with dream powder or riding a mighty basketball player was the 'golden tomorrow' of every middle-class 'hockey mom'.
Palin, a leader of the right-wing Teapot movement, added: "To all those who wake up in the morning, hoist the flag on their lawns and make waffles for their kids, I know how much you wish you were buzzing like a freak while screaming for more.
"You just want your kids to be safe, go to college and get a good job while you pay your mortgage and score some kick-ass blow before climbing on board a man who is so much more than that hard-working, pasty faced salesman you're so proud to be married to.
"But the real scandal is that the cronies in Washington keep all that sweet powder to themselves and use their corporate contacts to get great seats at basketball games, so close they can almost reach out and touch those glistening black thighs that can go all night long.
"I want you to know that I will always stand with you and if we stick to our beliefs, cherish our values and keep faith in God we can all share in an orgasm that you would simply not believe."
"And if I can do that while being so high I can actually see Jesus then, God willing, we can take our country back." (Courtesy of the Daily Mash).

ISAF said yesterday that insurgent attacks were down two percent in the first eight months of this year compared to the same period in 2010, and down 17 percent between June and August.
By contrast, the United Nations said the number of security incidents was up 39 percent on the first eight months of last year.
ISAF tried to spin the discrepancy by saying that unlike the UN, it did not define a string of acts including assassinations or attempted attacks as "security incidents."
Almost immediately it faced accusations across Twitter of playing down violence levels, more than a year after a "surge" of 30,000 extra American troops was designed to reverse the Taliban momentum.
"The UN category of 'security incidents' includes a wide range of events as contrasted in ISAF's significant activities reports," ISAF spokesman Brigadier General Carsten Jacobson told a press conference in Kabul.
"The UN counts a number of additional event types that ISAF does not include in its definition of security incidents such as cache finds, arrests, assassinations, intimidation and others.''

Approximately 25 percent of the total UN security incidents are event types that ISAF excludes from its figures. This helps explain why nobody takes anything NATO/ISAF say seriously.

The release from prison of Malik Ishaq (see clip) in July after spending 14 years in jail is seen in some circles, particulary Shiite and western ones, of proof of complicity between Pakistani authorities and anti - Shiite sectarian groups. A native of Punjab, Ishaq was accused of killing 70 people and faced 44 criminal charges, 34 of which have been dropped due to lack of evidence.
One of the charges against Ishaq is for involvement in the planning – while in prison – of the March 2009 attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore. Security experts say the group also collaborated with al Qaeda in the deadly September 2008 attack on Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel. While little is known about Ishaq in the West, most Pakistanis know him as the militant who was reportedly flown out of jail by the Pakistani military to negotiate with assailants during the hours-long, hugely embarrassing 2009 attack on the Pakistani Army headquarters in Rawalpindi. Shortly after his release in July, Ishaq embarked on an incendiary public speaking tour, addressing crowds of fired-up, slogan-chanting supporters as shown in the clip. The US and NATO are happy to support extremists if they fit the western agenda. They are needless to say not keen on Ishaq and are increasingly distrustful of the Pakistan authorities ability or willingness to control him and similar 'militant' figures.

Pakistan is hedging it's bets with the Haqqanis in my opinion. They are beginning to look to their own national interests more in the current international and Arab-spring climate and less to the West. Their suspicions of America are only exacerbated by the sabre-rattling of the US military boneheads as in this clip. A recent poll showed that 70% of the Pakistani population think that the death of Osama Bin Laden is a US-perpetrated hoax.

“dark-suited men who appeared to be protection officers” were observed at a swanky New York restaurant tasting food before it made its way to Blair. If the image sounds more fitting for a paranoid king than a British statesman, it’s no accident—as of late, a series of news reports have unflatteringly painted Blair as a man with lots of shadowy secrets to hide about his private life and financial largess. More Here.

A Defense Department inquiry from June 2010 concluded that Furlong's 'Information Operations Capstone' had hidden clandestine spying activity beneath layers of legitimate information collection, violating Pentagon policy and leading to the more in-depth investigations.
Furlong and Clarridge maintained that they were operating a legal network of paid informants, gathering data on issues ranging from gas prices and local clan disputes to enemy threats against coalition forces. Read More.

- Monthly 'security incidents' up 39 per cent through August, compared to same period in 2010.
- Armed clashes and improvised explosive devices continue to constitute the majority of incidents
- Increased incidents in Kabul and on the Pakistan border 'extremely worrying'
- NATO airstrikes killed 38 civilians in Afghanistan in July alone.
The report is in stark contrast with coalition military officials statements who are projecting a decrease in security incidents with some 'fragile and reversible gains'. Recent attacks on the NATO and CIA HQ buildings are bizarrely described by ISAF as a sign of Taliban weakness. I think we all know where the weakness lies.

All previous experience indicates that the latest expert estimate of the money spent by the UK on bombing Libya – up to £1.75 billion – will prove in time to be an underestimate.

Yesterday saw the heaviest NATO attack of the entire war, on the very centre of Sirte, leading thousands of civilians to try to flee. They are largely unable to do so because of a cordon of checkpoints set up by their attackers, slowing movement to a standstill and very occasional crawl. This massive bombing was coordinated with what we must now call the Libyan government – the former TNC. That a military action by NATO rationalised as protecting civilians from the Libyan government, ends up with a far greater bombardment of civilians on behalf of a different Libyan government, is too terrible to call ironic. NATO’s mandate to “protect civilians” from the UN actually expires on Friday, so all this week we will see a massive crescendo in NATO bombing of towns before that deadline.

But let us put that cost to the UK in context. The whole world economy is being shaken, and the livelihoods of billions damaged, by the problems of French banks having to write off Greek debt. If as expected Greece repudiates 50% of its debt, the capital written off by French banks will be in sterling approximately £4 billion. The £1.75 billion would make a big hole in that. I am certainly not suggesting that money should have been given to Greece instead of blowing up Libya, I am merely pointing out that this is a significant amount of money to waste in terms of global capital sums.

Remember we did not have that £1.75 billion – we borrowed it from the banks, adding to the international debt crisis and your and my tax burden for the rest of our lives, and our children after us. And remember the UK contributed under 25% of the NATO effort in Libya – total wasted will be pushing £10 billion.

NATO members are at the absolute heart of the world financial crisis. The colossal squandering of incredible – and in some cases unaccountable – sums in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are fundamental to the lack of fiscal control in these economies. Not a single media pundit has mentioned it.

Tuesday, 27 September 2011

Armed opposition to the government in Kabul long pre-dated the arrival of Soviet troops in December 1979. Every one of the Pakistan-based Afghan mujahideen leaders who became famous during the 1980s as the Peshawar Seven and were helped by the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China had gone into exile and taken up arms before December 1979, many of them years earlier. As Islamists, they opposed the secular and modernising tendencies of Daoud Khan, [the Afghan PM] who toppled his cousin, King Zahir Shah, in 1973. Read more.

Monday, 26 September 2011

Continued violence in Libya from a different news source for a change. Biased to Nato and its allies none the less. Well it is VOA Persian News Agency coverage. Worth watching even if you don't speak the lingo (I don't either).

Special Operations Forces are responsible for turning these groups into respectable units. When Danger Room asked if it was time for Caldwell to take over that training, Caldwell said, “We’ve not been asked to at this point… If there is a request for us to help and become engaged in that, we obviously would. But at this point, I think the special forces element that has the responsibility for that clearly sees and understands what that report says. We all take that very seriously.”
With insurgents assassinating the man in charge of negotiating a peace deal, the Afghan security forces are the backbone of the U.S.’ long-term plan for Afghan security. During his Senate testimony on Thursday, Panetta called their development “one of the most notable successes” of the war. Read more.

NATO released a characteristically absurd statement this morning that the fact that the Taliban are attacking them right where they live is a sign of desperation on their part and an indication of NATO/ISAF success. You get the picture - bizarro world.

As one journalist covering Afghanistan put it, “The ease with which suicide bombers can infiltrate the Kabul police’s so-called ring of steel to attack hotels, lob rocket-propelled grenades at the U.S. embassy or kill prominent Afghans intensifies the increasing impression that this is a city up for grabs.”

“I think every generation like me, they all think about leaving Afghanistan, because…everything is different,” said Kohistani. From Here.

The Israelis first requested the bunker busters in 2005, only to be rebuffed by the Bush administration. At the time, the Pentagon had frozen almost all U.S.-Israeli joint defense projects out of concern that Israel was transferring advanced military technology to China.

In 2007, Bush informed Ehud Olmert, then prime minister, that he would order the bunker busters for delivery in 2009 or 2010. The Israelis wanted them in 2007. Obama finally released the weapons in 2009, according to officials familiar with the still-secret decision.James Cartwright, the Marine Corps general who served until August as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Newsweek the military chiefs had no objections to the sale. Rather, Cartwright said, there was a concern about “how the Iranians would perceive it,” and “how the Israelis might perceive it.” In other words, would the sale be seen as a green light for Israel to attack Iran’s secret nuclear sites one day? FROM HERE.

Sunday, 25 September 2011

United States drones have reportedly struck three districts in southern Somalia, killing dozens of civilians and wounding scores of others.
The attacks took place on Sunday against the Hoosingow, Diif, and Taabto districts near the southern city of Afmadow, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Local elder Ahmed Kulmiye said hundreds of frightened families had started fleeing the area.
Two similar US-operated aircraft also reportedly crashed inside and along the coastline of the southern Kismayu port city, which is located some 500 kilometers to the south of the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Government officials described one of the aircraft as a spy drone and the other a destroyer.
Drone attacks in Somalia make the lawless state the sixth country where the US military has used remote-controlled aircraft to conduct such lethal strikes.
The United States has also employed drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen to launch aerial bombings.

Described as an effort to boost morale among soldiers, it shows an Apache helicopter commander admitting possible errors of judgement and warning colleagues not to disclose what they have seen. "This is not for discussion with anybody else; keep it quiet about what you see up here," he says in the film. "It's not because we've done anything wrong. But we might have done."
Last night, the MoD confirmed the speaker to be Warrant Officer Class 2 Andy Farmer, who is based with the Apache squadron in Wattisham, Suffolk.
Much of the footage is along the lines of the now infamous video of a US Apache helicopter strike on civilians in Baghdad in 2007, first released on WikiLeaks last year. In one clip an Afghan woman is targeted after a radio dialogue between pilots refers to her as a "snake with tits".

This is another proof, as if it was needed, that Afghans and Iraqis are regarded as untermenschen by the US establishment. And not just the military one.

A US soldier was sentenced to seven years in prison after becoming the third member of an army unit to admit his role in killings of Afghan civilians.
Private First Class Andrew Holmes, who struck a plea bargain on Thursday, will also be dishonorably discharged from the military, according to presiding judge Lieutenant Colonel Kwasi Hawks.
If the case had gone to trial and Holmes was convicted, he would have faced a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
With credit for 499 days of time served and potential time off for good behavior, the 21-year-old Holmes could be free much sooner, albeit with a dishonorable discharge.
Defense attorney Daniel Conway said after the day's proceedings that he will start the appeals process soon. "We're hoping to have him out by the time he's 25," Conway said.
Hawks had recommended a sentence of 15 years but the plea deal struck with prosecutors had capped that time to a maximum of seven years. Holmes also forfeits all pay and receives a reduction in grade to E-1. Harsh, eh?
Holmes on Thursday pleaded guilty to murder, but not to premeditated murder, during a court-martial hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, in the western state of Washington.
Two other members of the unit, Jeremy Morlock and Adam Winfield, reached plea deals earlier this year as the US Army works to conclude the high-profile war crimes case.

Despite the dressed-up opposition from America and Israel and their mouthpiece, Tony Blair, Mahmoud Abbas has confirmed that he is going ahead with Palestine's historical bid for nationhood at the United Nations.

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Remember when Labour politicians at least made a pretence of having ethical standards? Lord West made the "appalling" remarks about Britain's allies, both of which deployed to Afghanistan and Libya alongside UK forces, as he unveiled a report aimed at tackling delays and overspends in defence procurement.

The Labour peer and former First Sea Lord spoke of his "annoyance" at suggestions that Britain's military role was diminished in the 21st century.

He said: "This business of a second-tier power - we are probably, depending on what figures you use, the fifth or sixth wealthiest nation in the world.

"We have the largest percentage of our GDP on exports, apart from the tiny countries around the world, we run world shipping from the UK, we are the largest European investor in south Asia, south east Asia (and) the Pacific Rim, so our money and our wealth depends on this global scene.

"We are a permanent member of the (United Nations) Security Council and I think that gives us certain clout and certain ability.

"These mean we are not a second-tier power. We are not bloody Denmark or Belgium, and if we try to become that, I think we would be worse off as a result."

His comments came in a question and answer session with 100 defence industry experts and journalists at Labour headquarters in London as the party revealed the findings of a 10-month review into defence procurement, aimed at getting better value for money from buying equipment for the UK's armed forces. From Here.

In Ramallah yesterday, they didn't love the UN but they understood its uses. Quite a few shopkeepers, all men of course, even suggested that they wanted Barack Obama to veto a Security Council vote on "Palestine's" statehood, since this would finally prove to all Arabs that America was not their friend. No one suggested that Obama, who so blithely declared a new relationship with the Muslim world in Cairo and called for a Palestinian state by 2012, might – in the spirit of Woodrow Wilson – courageously support a vote for "Palestine", albeit at the cost of his re-election. But then again, that would be fantasy, wouldn't it?Read More.

PEOPLE like your crazy neighbour with all the replica weapons are to be allowed into the army as part of a cost-cutting initiative, it has emerged.
Swingeing military budget cuts mean that the many thousands of social misfits hanging out in army surplus shops are finally going to get their long hoped-for access to heavy artillery, as plans have been announced to recruit them as unpaid soldiers.
Posters with the strapline 'Just Because You're Not Allowed Out Unsupervised Doesn't Mean You Can't Be A Sergeant' will be appearing in depressing provincial towns across the UK.

An army spokesman said: "In every UK neighbourhood there's at least one middle-aged 'mental army man' who wears full camouflage attire to the pub and owns every Chuck Norris film on VHS, piled up in his bedsit in a big Jenga-like stack next to a pewter samurai sword, a copy of the SAS Survival Handbook and the week-old remains of a Morrisons Generic Beef Dinner For One.
"From a military perspective they are mostly harmless, won't demand any wages and even better they tend to believe they're impervious to bullets.
"Plus they rarely have families which means even less compensation in the event of fatalities."
He added: "We might also get people who are as good at playing Risk as some of our generals."
It is understood defence bosses are split over whether to recruit the mental army people as free soldiers or to actually make them pay a monthly subscription fee, in exchange for which they will receive 'army membership' and an Airfix jeep supplied in individual parts over three years.
Mental Combat and Survival magazine subscriber Roy Hobbs said: "Despite ostensibly living with my mum I have done secret mercenary missions for years, alongside my 'cover' job of working nights in a fridge door factory.
"And I know how to kill a horse with a spoon."
Thanks To the Daily Mash.

As we have pointed out for years on this site, many civilians are being killed in US drone strikes already taking place in countries such as Pakistan for example who are going to lodge a complaint with United Nations. Full story and clip here.

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

The chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, has been killed in a bomb attack at his home in Kabul, Afghan officials confirmed in the last hour. He was meeting two members of the Taliban at his home at the time of the blast, they said. It is unclear if they were involved in the attack.
The High Peace Council leads Afghan efforts to negotiate with the Taliban.
Mr Rabbani is a former president of Afghanistan and also led the main political opposition in the country. Unconfirmed reports say he may have been killed by a suicide attacker.
When the peace council was set up, Afghan President Hamid Karzai described it as the greatest hope for the Afghan people and called on the Taliban to seize the opportunity and help bring peace. But many members of the council are former warlords who spent years fighting the Taliban and their inclusion led to doubts as to whether it could succeed in its mission. Watch out for NATO/ISAF trying to blame it on Haqqanis, a proposition as ridiculous as their blandishments after last week's Kabul attack on the NATO base.

Obama is now asking Congress for a waiver on Uzbekistan’s human rights record – arguably the worst in the world – in order to restart military supplies to President Karimov of Uzbekistan. Even Bush stopped these, after the 2005 Andijan massacre of at least 800 civilian demonstrators.

I have repeatedly pointed to the ever-increasing role of the “Northern Distribution Network” for getting supplies to the NATO troops in Afghanistan, with Uzbekistan as the point of entry. The Wikileaks cables from Tashkent outline a consistent US policy of sacrificing the human rights of Uzbeks in order to promote this military agenda.Unfortunately, by promoting evil dictatorship in Central Asia, the United States and NATO are not advancing their own long term interests. Like Mubarak, Karimov is passing his sell-by date. But all rational thinking is thrown out of the window as NATO concentrates on the war it is losing in Afghanistan.I am advised by the British Embassy that to visit the scenes of the November 1841 uprising in central Kabul as research for my book on Burnes is too dangerous. After ten full years of occupation, with 180,000 troops and billions of dollars in military hardware, they do not even control a few square miles in the centre of the capital, let alone the country. The recent attacks on the US Embassy and British Council have proved that. This war is lost.America’s increasing fawning to Karimov is yet more evidence of that. The reason America is now so desperate for his favour is that, as they leave defeated, taking Karzai with them, they have to get out millions of tonnes of vehicles and military equipment, which has to pass overland. They have lost this war so absolutely that they no longer have possession of the ground they started with. They cannot get out the way they went in, through Pakistan, as they would be attacked in the Bolan and Khyber passes, and along the entire route. So they have to leave through Uzbekistan. The Americans will do anything for Karimov, just as long as they get permission to slink out through his country. I hope as they go they look into the faces of the people whose continued enslavement buys their permission.

The New York-based Open Society Foundations said in its latest report published on Monday that US-led troops carried out an average 19 raids a night between December 2010 and February 2011, AP reported.
Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai, have publicly criticized nighttime operations, saying the raids violate Afghan citizens' privacy and increase public anger about foreign troops.
The researchers of the New York-based Open Society Foundations also interviewed a NATO official in April when the officer said as many as 40 raids might take place on any given night in Afghanistan.
The report also described the night-time attacks as a "losing tactic" that raised discontentment and mistrust both among ordinary Afghans and within the government.
The findings are potentially troubling for the NATO troops who regularly are accused of mistreating women or defiling copies of holy Qur'an. The civilian casualties of the nighttime raids also damage the reputation of US-led troops.
“The escalation in raids has taken the battlefield more directly into Afghan homes, sparking tremendous backlash among the Afghan population,'' the report said.
“Complaints over night raids have marred Afghan relations with international partners, particularly the United States, and have complicated long-term strategic partnership discussions.”
Civilian casualties caused by NATO attacks have been a major source of tension between the Karzai government and the US-led alliance.

Sunday, 18 September 2011

In one excerpt published by the Corriere della Sera daily, Berlusconi boasts of champagne-filled partying with women till 6:30 am at a Milan nightclub and pocketing eight phone numbers of women.“If you have a girl—two girls, three girls—to bring,” Berlusconi is quoted as asking the southern businessman ahead of their next encounter. “Please don’t get tall ones ... because we are not tall.”In another excerpt reported by major dailies, Berlusconi says “Gianpi” and his female friends could come along on the premier’s flight to Milan. Yet another has him joking to a young woman that he works as prime minister during his “spare time”.Opposition parties stepped up calls for Berlusconi to resign after the latest disclosures, saying a country struggling to overcome a debt crisis that threatens the euro zone could not afford a premier who “governs in his spare time”.

Saturday, 17 September 2011

His family came to Gaza City in 1948 as refugees from Beit Jirja, a village that has now been absorbed into the Israeli town of Sderot, a town just across the border at which his fellow militants regularly fire rockets. He joined the Islamic Jihad movement when he was at high school, but it was only during the second intifada that he became active in the group's militant wing, al-Quds Brigade.

"The Israeli occupation is an overt act of violence against Palestinians and I believed military action was the only way to liberate our land," he explains. "I saw we had two choices, victory or martyrdom." Full details here.

The Mayor Of Kabul is in no doubt where the real corruption and incompetence lies:

"for contracts, for corrupt contracts, for sub-contracts, for the contracts that the Afghan government is not involved in at all, for the millions of dollars that go to criminals ... The person that gives contracts of hundreds of millions of dollars without accountability to government officials – that is actually promoting corruption."He has, he says, discussed this issue "repeatedly" with the Western powers, who have, finally and too late, put up their hands. "And now they admitted, they say 'Yes, you are right'." He does not deny that part of the fault also lies elsewhere, but he insists that "the big corruption" is due to foreign influence. "Corruption in the Afghan government, our own political circles, is also true. The small kind of corruption, bribes, is one thing, but the bigger level of corruption of contracts, hundreds of millions of dollars..." He shakes his head. Full interview report.

This week, Obama's party suffered an upset defeat in a New York congressional election in a heavily Jewish constituency. Israel was not the only factor at a time of high unemployment and economic stagnation. But a Public Policy Polls survey taken shortly before the election showed a majority of voters said Israel was "very important" in determining how they cast their ballot, and fewer than one in four Jewish voters approved of Obama's handling of Netanyahu.
That has implications for Obama's own reelection campaign in some swing states with significant Jewish populations, particularly Florida. More Here.

'But even that was nothing like what happened during the Tea Party/CNN debate the evening of September 12, when the topic of discussion was who would pay to keep a 30-year-old alive who lacked health insurance and had been in a terrible motorcycle accident. As Congressman Ron Paul was busy equating the death of this hypothetical easy rider with the "freedom" enjoyed by Americans, the crowd began to lustily cheer and yell "yeah" to the question of whether this accident victim should be allowed to die.Think about that for a second. Weren't these the guys and gals who blew a gasket over the prospect of allowing the severely brain-damaged Terry Schiavo to rest in peace a few years back, and attacked her husband as some sort of ghoul for wanting his wife to die with dignity? Yet, somehow these days, bringing a little more Torquemada to their decision-making regarding who lives and who dies, seems to have become the new-new-conservatism.' Full article.

Wednesday, 14 September 2011

United States ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker said on Wednesday that his embassy was hit with six rockets in a Taliban attack, but played down the insurgents’ raid as “not a very big deal”. His estimate of the number of rocket hits is at odds with every other local report which talk of double that number. The attack launched yesterday lasted for 19 hours and left 27 people, including the attackers, dead in a barrage of gunfire and suicide blasts targeting the US embassy and the neighbouring headquarters of Nato-led troops in Afghanistan. His official had earlier that injuries there were limited to three Afghan visa applicants and one Afghan security guard.
“This really is not a very big deal, a hard day for the embassy and my staff who behaved with enormous courage and dedication,” he said in a pooled media interview.“Half a dozen RPG rounds from 800 metres away — that isn’t Tet (a key offensive in the Vietnam war), that’s harassment.” Kabul shopkeeper Mohammad Bashir Suleiman Khil summed up the thoughts of many, as reported on Reuters. "Every 10 days there are attacks in Kabul," he said. "There is no work, there is no business. People are not coming out of their homes today. We don't have any hope here." 27 dead Afghans in their own country. 'No big deal'. There is your defeat right there, Obama(O brought Crocker out of retirement for the job).

'But the impact such high-profile attacks have on the perceptions of the Afghan public is devastating. The ability of the Taliban insurgents to penetrate the capital's strongholds severely undermines the trust and confidence of Afghan citizens in their security forces to protect them. Perception is key here, and the insurgents know this well.Today's attack is specifically designed to garner as much media attention as possible, as were the Intercontinental Hotel and the British Council raids.' More Here.

Powell trying (and failing) to justify his position again. The blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis is on his hands as much as anybody's. 'I felt terrible' he says. Not as terrible as the millions of dead and displaced Iraqis whose lives were ruined. The presenter should have slapped him. 'The terrorists' are the enemy in the world apparently. Good analysis, Col.

'Poor governance, corruption, human rights abuses, and impunity for government-affiliated forces all are drivers of the insurgency."

Afghanistan's intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, had reactivated militia networks dating back to Afghanistan's bloody civil war, the report said, providing money and weapons that have been used with impunity.

Northern Kunduz province has seen a particularly rapid spread, and Human Rights Watch cites the case of four men killed by a militia in the course of a family dispute in 2009. No one involved had been arrested, because the commander had close ties to police and a local strongman, the report said.

Also problematic are the Afghan Local Police (ALP), a flagship project of General David Petraeus, who stepped down as commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan earlier this year. Full article here.

Saturday, 10 September 2011

The British press celebrates the triumph of Libya’s “rebel” forces. And the British arms industry toasts its continued success in expanding its markets in the Middle East.

A Libyan woman reads a copy of daily newspaper Arus al-Bahr, bearing a doctored image of Gaddafi dressed as a woman. Tripoli, 8 September 2011.

On 13 September, one of the world's biggest arms fairs opens in London, backed by the British government. On 8 September, the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry held a preview entitled "Middle East: a Vast Market for UK Defence and Security Companies". The host was the Royal Bank of Scotland, a major investor in cluster bombs. According to Amnesty International, 98 per cent of the victims of cluster bombs are civilians and 30 per cent children. RBS has received £20bn in public money. The blurb for the bank's arms party read: "The Middle East is one of the regions with the greatest number of opportunities for UK defence and security companies. Saudi Arabia . . . is the world's top defence importer, having spent $56bn in 2009 . . . a very worthwhile region to target."

Such are the Cameron government's priorities following the great "humanitarian" victory in Libya. As Margaret Thatcher once declared: "Rejoice!" And as the bankers and arms merchants raise their glasses, let us not forget the heroic RAF pilots who made Libya ours again by incinerating countless "pro-Gaddafi elements" in their homes and cots and clinics, and the unsung stalwarts of the British drone industry at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire who, before and after lunch, provide the information for targets so that Hellfire missiles can flatten homes and suck the air out of lungs. And cheers to QinetiQ's drone testing site at Aberporth and at UAV Engines Limited in Lichfield.

Heist of little interest

The west's humanitarian mission is not quite finished. Six months after securing a UN resolution authorising "the [protection] of civilians and civilian-populated areas under the threat of attack", Nato is raining fragmentation bombs on civilian-populated Sirte and other "Gaddafi strongholds" where, says a Channel 4 News reporter, "until they cut off the head of the snake, Libyans will not feel safe". I quote that not so much for its Orwellian quality, but as a model of journalism's role in justifying "our" bloodbaths in advance.

This is Rupert's Revolution, after all. Gone from the Murdoch press are pejorative "insurgents". The action in Libya, says the Times, is "a revolution . . . as revolutions used to be". That it is a coup by a gang of Muammar al-Gaddafi's ex-cronies and spooks in collusion with Nato is hardly news. Their self-appointed leader, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, was Gaddafi's feared justice minister. The CIA runs or bankrolls most of the rest, including America's old friends - the mujahedin Islamists who spawned al-Qaeda. They told journalists what they needed to know: that Gaddafi was about to commit "genocide", of which there was no evidence, unlike the abundant evidence of "rebel" massacres of black African workers falsely accused of being mercenaries. European bankers' secret transfer of the Central Bank of Libya from Tripoli to Benghazi in order to control the country's oil billions was an epic heist of little interest.

The entirely predictable indictment of Gaddafi before the "international court" at The Hague evokes the charade of the dying "Lockerbie bomber", Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, whose "heinous crime" has been deployed to promote the west's ambitions in Libya. In 2009, al-Megrahi was sent back to Libya not for compassionate reasons, as reported, but because his appeal would have confirmed his innocence and described how he was framed by the Thatcher government, as the late Paul Foot's landmark exposé revealed. As an antidote to the current propaganda, I urge you to read the forensic demolition of Megrahi's "guilt" and its wider meaning in Dispatches from the Dark Side: on Torture and the Death of Justice (Verso) by the distinguished human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce.

This is not to detract from Gaddafi's awful dictatorship, a "rendition" destination for MI6, we now learn. But his odium is unrelated to the rape of his country by imperial caricatures such as Nicolas Sarkozy, a Napoleonic Islamophobe whose intelligence services almost certainly set up the coup against Gaddafi. US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks disclose the west's panic over Gaddafi's refusal to hand over the greatest reserves of oil in Africa and his overtures to China and Russia.

Get it right

Propaganda relies not only on Murdoch but on apparently respectable voices inducing historical amnesia. The Observer, which has yet to apologise for its catastrophic promotion of Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, is in thrall to the "honourable intervention" of Sarkozy and Cameron and their "humanitarian and emotional" motives. Its political columnist Andrew Rawnsley completes an impressive double. As Media Lens reminds us, in 2003, Rawnsley wrote of Iraq: "The death toll has been nothing like as high as had been widely feared." A million dead Iraqis later, Rawnsley insists that, in Libya, Britain "got it right" and "the number of civilian casualties inflicted by the air strikes seems to have been mercifully light". Tell that to those with loved ones obliterated by corporate-friendly Hellfires.

Nato attacked Libya to counter and manipulate a general Arab uprising that took the rulers of the world by surprise. Unlike his neighbours, Gaddafi had come to power by denying western control of his country's natural wealth. For this, he was never forgiven, and the opportunity for his demise was seized in the usual manner. The American historian William Blum has kept the record. Since the Second World War, the United States has crushed or subverted liberation movements in 20 countries, and attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratic.